Personal Knowledge Base Reflection I guess you could say I’m a little “out of the times” when it comes to technology. I’ve never been good at figuring it out, so I’ve always tried to avoid it as much as possible. When I first started using Evernote for this class, I often became frustrated and questioned why it was so important for us to use this tool when I could just be handwriting all of my notes. As the course progressed, I became better at using Evernote and the Web Clipper and realized quickly why it’s so crucial to use for this class. Most of this class involves researching issues and opinions around educational reform and analyzing the information presented in the sources. That’s not something you can take hand-written notes on. Evernote allowed me to save important articles and other resources into my personal knowledge base so that I could access them at any time. It also was very useful when it came to analyzing the sources since it’s so easy to take notes on articles that you’ve clipped to your notebook. When it came time to write a paper on the information we’ve researched, it was all right there in my PKB, and writing the paper was a breeze. Evernote was also useful for taking class discussion notes; it’s hard to write down everyone’s ideas when everyone’s minds are flowing so fast, but typing it on Evernote was fast and easy. I was also able to pull up these discussion notes to help form questions and opinions on topics around reform. I could use easily use these notes to supplement my projects/papers I had to write throughout the course. Evernote was especially helpful for group work and organization, too, because taking notes and adding resources for the project made completing the assignment much easier for the whole group. Overall, Evernote and the Web Clipper were vital tools for me when it came to supporting my work in class. Organizing my resources and analyses for this class on Evernote has become second nature for me. It’s so easy to clip an article into my PKB for a project or paper then summarize/analyze those resources. Looking back at past class notes that I added to my notebook was also useful for developing thoughtful questions on issues in educational reform. This encouraged me to then research answers to the questions I came up with so that I could become more informed on this issues as a whole. These metacognitive protocols that I’ve developed by simply using Evernote have been more than helpful for organizing my thoughts and allowing me to really analyze and explore new information and opinions on the educational system. It’s really changed the way I think! One of the benefits of using Evernote is that none of the articles or notes that I post in it will ever get lost, even if my computer were to crash! Paper notes and notebooks are easy to misplace, and once they are misplaced, there’s no way to get back that precious work that was inside of it. Even Word can be unreliable, as documents can get lost if they’re not saved constantly. Notes and resources are there FOREVER on your Evernote account, which is convenient and useful in the long run. Because of the fact that I can look at any past notes at any time in the future, I will be able to have better notes to study from for things like finals and midterms. If I take notes in Evernote on the first day of class, I can use those notes four months later to study for the final in that class! In addition, notes from past courses that I added to my PKB can be accessed at any time for use in future courses. Since I am a biological sciences major, this is especially helpful. All of the science courses build off of each other, so it is nice knowing that my notes in my PKB will be there until my senior year of graduate school just in case I need a refresher on a topic from a past course. I will always be prepared for any class in the future because of my PKB. Even though I was reluctant to start using Evernote at the beginning of the semester, I’m glad I got the hang of it. It has become an essential tool not only for this class, but for all of my other classes, as well. I’ve learned that technology isn’t always a bad things… In fact, it’s made life easier in this case!
I guess you could say I’m a little “out of the times” when it comes to technology. I’ve never been good at figuring it out, so I’ve always tried to avoid it as much as possible. When I first started using Evernote for this class, I often became frustrated and questioned why it was so important for us to use this tool when I could just be handwriting all of my notes. As the course progressed, I became better at using Evernote and the Web Clipper and realized quickly why it’s so crucial to use for this class.
Most of this class involves researching issues and opinions around educational reform and analyzing the information presented in the sources. That’s not something you can take hand-written notes on. Evernote allowed me to save important articles and other resources into my personal knowledge base so that I could access them at any time. It also was very useful when it came to analyzing the sources since it’s so easy to take notes on articles that you’ve clipped to your notebook. When it came time to write a paper on the information we’ve researched, it was all right there in my PKB, and writing the paper was a breeze. Evernote was also useful for taking class discussion notes; it’s hard to write down everyone’s ideas when everyone’s minds are flowing so fast, but typing it on Evernote was fast and easy. I was also able to pull up these discussion notes to help form questions and opinions on topics around reform. I could use easily use these notes to supplement my projects/papers I had to write throughout the course. Evernote was especially helpful for group work and organization, too, because taking notes and adding resources for the project made completing the assignment much easier for the whole group. Overall, Evernote and the Web Clipper were vital tools for me when it came to supporting my work in class.
Organizing my resources and analyses for this class on Evernote has become second nature for me. It’s so easy to clip an article into my PKB for a project or paper then summarize/analyze those resources. Looking back at past class notes that I added to my notebook was also useful for developing thoughtful questions on issues in educational reform. This encouraged me to then research answers to the questions I came up with so that I could become more informed on this issues as a whole. These metacognitive protocols that I’ve developed by simply using Evernote have been more than helpful for organizing my thoughts and allowing me to really analyze and explore new information and opinions on the educational system. It’s really changed the way I think!
One of the benefits of using Evernote is that none of the articles or notes that I post in it will ever get lost, even if my computer were to crash! Paper notes and notebooks are easy to misplace, and once they are misplaced, there’s no way to get back that precious work that was inside of it. Even Word can be unreliable, as documents can get lost if they’re not saved constantly. Notes and resources are there FOREVER on your Evernote account, which is convenient and useful in the long run. Because of the fact that I can look at any past notes at any time in the future, I will be able to have better notes to study from for things like finals and midterms. If I take notes in Evernote on the first day of class, I can use those notes four months later to study for the final in that class! In addition, notes from past courses that I added to my PKB can be accessed at any time for use in future courses. Since I am a biological sciences major, this is especially helpful. All of the science courses build off of each other, so it is nice knowing that my notes in my PKB will be there until my senior year of graduate school just in case I need a refresher on a topic from a past course. I will always be prepared for any class in the future because of my PKB.
Even though I was reluctant to start using Evernote at the beginning of the semester, I’m glad I got the hang of it. It has become an essential tool not only for this class, but for all of my other classes, as well. I’ve learned that technology isn’t always a bad things… In fact, it’s made life easier in this case!